Curved sausage links, as compared to straight sausage links, have great appeal in certain sausage markets throughout the World. Efforts have been made to create a curved configuration in otherwise straight sausages by using mechanical forces or pre-curved casings. Other attempts have been made to create curved sausages by introducing two separate streams of meat-dough into a stuffing tube whereby the separate layers of sausage material will shrink in variable increments to induce a curve in the resulting link. However, introducing two different meat-dough materials into the casing is difficult and expensive. Other disadvantages of earlier inventions (e.g., EP0720816B1) is that the flow of material will be blocked by meat particles when producing sausage strands of smaller diameters.
It is therefore a principal object of this invention to provide a method and means for curving sausage links wherein only a single material can be introduced into the sausage extrusion or stuffing tube.
A further object of this invention is to provide a resistor element in the hollow sausage tube to allow a first portion of the sausage emulsion to flow freely through the tube while another portion of sausage material will be inhibited by the resistor element, thereby allowing the first portion to have linearly disposed protein fibers, which gradually progresses to a second portion comprised of interrupted sausage emulsion which will have sausage fibers disposed in a random orientation, thus causing a different shrinkage phenomenon between the two general portions when heat is supplied thereto.
These and other objects will be apparent to those skilled in the art.
A method of creating curved sausage links involves extruding an elongated sausage strand having linear protein fibers therein out of an elongated hollow meat emulsion extrusion tube. The flow of meat emulsion through the tube is partially restricted by a restrictor element within the tube which permits a portion of the meat emulsion to pass thereover in a substantially uninterrupted manner, but which requires a separate portion of meat emulsion to have its movement through the tube inhibited by engaging the restrictor element and having to move thereover to exit the tube. This phenomenon causes the unrestricted meat emulsion to have the elongated protein fibers therein to position themselves in a linear configuration, with the interrupted meat emulsion portion having the protein fibers therein changed to a random configuration. A gradient of the linear fibers generally called a first portion gradually progresses to the second general portion where the fibers are in a random configuration. When the sausage strand comprising the two general portions which exit the extrusion tube are subjected to heat, the uninterrupted portion is inclined to have more lengthwise shrinkage in the presence of heat than the other portions, thus causing the sausage link to assume a curved configuration. The machine for practicing this method has a stuffing tube with the restrictor element therein as described heretofore.